An Ethnography of Mixed Martial Arts
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The Body in Pain and Pleasure An Ethnography of Mixed Martial Arts Magnus Stenius Department of Culture and Media Studies Umeå University, Umeå 2015 Ethnological Studies 60 Department of Culture and Media Studies Umeå University Responsible publisher under Swedish law: the Dean of Faculty of Humanities Copyright © Magnus Stenius. This work is protected by the Swedish Copyright Legislation (Act 1960:729) ISBN: 978-91-7601-325-0 ISSN: 1103-6516 Electronic version provided at http://umu.diva-portal.org/ Printed by: Print & Media Umeå Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden 2015 For Ann Enström and our daughters Aja, Elza, Paulina, and Olivia forever CONTENTS THE PAPERS IN THE THESIS III FOREWORD V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VII ABSTRACT IX 1 1. SCOPE AND AIMS 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Aims and Research Questions 3 1.3 Fieldwork 4 1.4 The Fields and the Localities of Mixed Martial Arts 6 1.5 Background of Martial Arts, Combat Sports, and MMA 7 1.6 Combat Sports 9 1.7 Previous Research on Combat Sports and MMA 10 1.8 The Papers 11 2. METHODOLOGY 15 2.1 Participant Observation 16 2.2 Autoethnography 19 2.3 Reflexivity 20 2.4 Performance Ethnography 20 2.5 Concluding Methodological Reflections 22 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 25 3.1 Flow 25 3.2 Performativity and Performance of Actions 28 3.3 Violence Through the Act of Performance 30 3.4 Phenomenology: MMA and the Gap in a Violent Theory 32 3.5 Materiality 34 3.6 The Masculine Turn: Across Combat Arts and Gender Borders 36 4. MOMENTS IN THE GYM 39 5. CONCLUSIONS 49 APPENDIX 1: Mixed Martial Arts Terminology Index 53 APPENDIX 2: Comments on the Research Literature 65 REFERENCES 67 Interviews and Observations 67 Literature 67 Internet and Blogs 75 Film, Media, Television and Videos 75 Newspaper Articles 75 Sammanfattning 77 i ii THE PAPERS IN THE THESIS Paper I Just Be Natural With Your Body: An Autoethnography of Violence and Pain in Mixed Martial Arts. Submitted to International Journal of Martial Arts (Accepted with minor revisions). Authors: Magnus Stenius (1st Author) and Ronald Dziwenka (2nd Author). 2015. Paper II Actors of Violence: Staging the Arena in Mixed Martial Arts. International Journal of Nordic Theatre Studies 23(1): 86-97, Nordic Theatre Scholars, Stockholm (Published). Author: Magnus Stenius. 2011. Paper III Hybrid Masculinity in Mixed Martial Arts: Gender, Homosociality and Homoeroticism. (Resubmitted to Men & Masculinities, SAGE Publications). Author: Magnus Stenius. 2015. Paper IV The Legacy of Pankration: Mixed Martial Arts and The Posthuman Revival of a Fighting Culture (Published; version 2014 (2013 online), Journal of Combat Sports and Martial Arts Science 13(05): 40-57, International Combat Martial Arts Union Association ICMAUA. 2014. Author Magnus Stenius 2013, 2014. iii iv FOREWORD On 21 November 1993, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) held its first prize- fighting event in Denver, Colorado, called UFC 1: The Beginning. The event was arranged by Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor Rorion Gracie, whose son Royce emerged victorious from the eight-man-strong tournament (Downey, 2007, 201). The champion had to win three matches in a single night to take home the 50,000-dollar prize. While the promoters publicized the first UFC events as a no rules, “anything goes”, affair, there were in fact exceptions: no hitting below the belt and no fish hooking, i.e. face gouging (Spencer, 2012). The combatants came from a wide variety of martial arts backgrounds, including boxing, judo, karate, Thai boxing, and even professional Greco- Roman and sumo wrestling. Each bout continued until one contestant was knocked unconscious, the referee stopped the match, a fighter signaled surrender by tapping out, or the fighter’s corner threw in the towel. Critics reacted harshly to the event’s sensational campaign, its imbalanced match- ups, and its liberal rules. Traditional martial arts enthusiasts were more stunned by the outcome (Bolelli 2008; Downey, 2007, 202). Following the victory of the smallest fighter in the tournament, who went on to win two of the next four tournaments before finally fighting to a draw with American Ken Shamrock in the UFC 5 finale, the paradigm of martial arts fighting shifted dramatically. Royce Gracie had defeated bigger, stronger challengers using grappling techniques alone. He had not thrown a single blow against any opponent. At the same time UFC 1 took place, I was nineteen years old, somewhere out on the Baltic Sea, doing my mandatory military service in the Swedish Marines. A week after the event, one of the soldiers brought aboard a bootleg copy from the United States featuring UFC 1. The next evening, all of us marines watched the fights in the ship’s dining hall. Some of us were both shocked and disgusted by what we saw. Some were thrilled, while others were just staring at the television, some amused and some excited. What was so striking was that some of us did not know how to react at all. Personally, I felt a sort of sickness by watching the event, and since that day I have kept it in my memories. What really happened and what went on, and why did this sport have such an impact on me? The following text in this thesis is a discussion of these thoughts. I shall try to give both a closer picture and an overview of a phenomenon that has hit the popular cultural market, humans fighting humans for sport. v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are a lot of people I want to say thanks to because without their support this thesis would not have been written. To the staff and graduate students at the UCGS research school, thank you for your helpful comments and opinions on my papers. Thanks also to my colleagues at the Department of Culture and Media Studies. Dr. Alon Lischinsky for helping out with the articles from the beginning. Ann Enström for everything, especially for reading my manuscripts and providing such positive feedback. My supervisor, Professor Marianne Liliequist, for her guidance in the last phases of the thesis, words are not enough, and to Associate Professor Håkan Berglund-Lake for his positive inspiration and “ethno wisdom”, a huge thanks. Ann-Louis Silver, thank you. Professor Bo Nilsson worked with me in the first years, and without him I could not have reached this far, thank you. Professor emeritus Billy Ehn, for not giving up on me ever, and for passing on his extensive “ethnofield” knowledge, thanks always. Associate professor Roger Jacobsson, thanks for the moral support. Kristina Hellman for assistance, Dr. Torkel Molin for good vibes, and Lena Danielsson and Gunilla Öhman for helping out whenever needed. Dr. Peter Åström, final seminar reader, thanks. I also want to thank my colleagues at the seminar of ethnology who have helped out with constructive criticism. Karin Ljuslinder and Kerstin Engström, thanks. A great extra thanks goes out to Professor Orin Starn for his kindness, providing me a workspace and a desk at the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University in the US and for reading my texts and always supporting me. Associate Professor Kevin Sobel-Read, at University of Newcastle, Australia, for reading my articles and the introductory part to the thesis, and for letting me stay in his home with his family in Raleigh in the US when he worked at the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, thanks. I would also like to thank the Wennergren Center, the Wallenberg Foundation, the Ax:son Johnson Foundation, and Umeå University for travel grants and FAS for providing financial support to allow me to conduct my studies in the US as a visiting guest scholar in the fall of 2013 and in the spring of 2014. Also thanks to Professor Naomi Sheman for her help on the project with good ideas and comments on the draft in the earlier stage of my doctoral studies. And to my first anthropological teacher at Stockholm University, Professor emeritus Ulf Hannerz who helped out with writing a recommendation letter to the US Embassy for coming to the US. I also want to thank Inger Enström for babysitting and helping out during my research time. Fredrik and Julia Färjhage-Enström, thanks. For taking care of me in my childhood, Marie Birgander, my foster mother, and to Stig-Åke Skoglund, the closest to any father figure who supported me as a young boy, and thanks to Patrik, Anna, Alexander, Cecilia. Thanks to my friends, Ari Allansson and Rasmus Sellberg. vii Finally, a great thanks to the staff at the One Gym in Hong Kong, Renyi Gym in Umeå, Sweden, BJJ in Umeå, X-Ring MMA Umeå, Hilti Gym in Stockholm, MO Gym in Macau, Daido Juku in Japan, X-Gym in Rio de Janeiro, Tactical MMA and Kung Fu in Durham, and the UFC in Las Vegas, and to all of the fighters. To UFC veteran fighter Tor Troeng for his generosity, being so open about his MMA career, thanks. To martial arts legends Andy Hug, Mike Bernardo, and especially to the Swedish fighter Martin Holm, one of the greatest fighters ever, whose martial arts skills and performances and competitions in combat sports deserve great recognition. For these achievements, his memory lives on forever, RIP. I am also of course in great debt to all of my informants, training partners, and participants who freely took part in my observations and without whom this study would not have been possible. Thus, in the meetings that have crossed the borders of academia and the everyday life and world of the gym, formal structures have been done away with in this experimental autoethnography. I have immersed myself among fighters – both amateurs and professionals – participating in all the phases of the MMA from strenuous preparation, to drills, to sparring, to fighting.